CLEVELAND, Ohio — It’s time for this week’s Terry’s Talkin’ podcast, with cleveland.com columnist Terry Pluto and host David Campbell. This week, Terry reports on his first impressions of Browns OTAs as he visited Berea on Wednesday.
They also look at the NBA Finals and what Cavs fans can take away from the Pacers vs. Thunder matchup.
They also get into the Guardians and some ways they might be able to shake up their offense.
Have any questions or comments for the podcast? Send your thoughts and questions in via email to us at sports@cleveland.com and put “Terry’s Talkin’” in the subject line, and we’ll try to feature it on an upcoming episode.
Here’s the podcast for this week:
Also, we are looking for stories or memorable moments you’ve had with Guardians play-by-play voice Tom Hamilton as he prepares for his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame this July.
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You can find previous podcasts below.
The transcript below was generated by a computer, and as such it contains many spelling and grammar errors.
Note: Artificial intelligence was used to help generate this story from Terry’s Talkin’, a weekly cleveland.com sports podcast. Visitors to cleveland.com have asked for more text stories based on website podcast discussions.
David Campbell (03:10.09)
Hey welcome it’s the new edition of the Terry’s Talkin’ podcast. We’re taping this late on Wednesday afternoon. I’m David Campbell your host. Terry Pluto is here fresh from OTA’s out in Berea. Terry how you doing?
Terry Pluto (03:22.766)
I always liked that called organized team activities as opposed to what disorganized team activities or whatever. They do, yes, right, yeah. Or dumb team activities, but it looked like basically most of these that I’ve seen. It’s kind of touch football. It’s hard to judge most things because nobody’s hitting anybody. And...
David Campbell (03:26.082)
That was last year’s Browns they were the D DOT This was OTA so you picked the hot one to get out there but
Terry Pluto (03:50.76)
It really the things that I can see kind of see how the query backs are throwing the ball You can see receivers. You can see guys Defending passes. I don’t know you’ve been out there anything else that you could really see
David Campbell (04:04.194)
Oh, I don’t know. You watch Technique and you see how fast guys are compared to others. So yeah, let’s get, start with the Browns here, Terry. And then we have some other good stuff to get into. We get some really good Cavs emails as people continue to try and build the roster. And I know you want to talk about the Guardians and some things you’re thinking about that. so today it was OTAs, all the quarterbacks were there. It’s the first time you’ve kind of seen the four of them throw, but you, did you come away with any impressions of?
Terry Pluto (04:06.349)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (04:13.101)
Good.
Terry Pluto (04:25.486)
Mm-hmm.
David Campbell (04:29.386)
I don’t know how did Dylan Gabriel look and how did Chidur Sanders look? Did Flacco look like Flacco? Give us a rundown of all four guys maybe real quick.
Terry Pluto (04:36.45)
Well, first of all, Joe Flacco is made for this right there. This kind of touch football where, know, you could just look at the field and fire it and he could really do that. I mean, he is so comfortable. they having touch football in the Olympics or something? Somebody said to me. Yeah, he ought to be the quarterback. I mean, he really should. And I don’t mean to knock it. It’s just like, you know, first of all, he’s, bigger than the other guys. He just.
David Campbell (04:54.188)
Flag football, yeah.
You might be.
Terry Pluto (05:06.348)
You could tell this is, always think you’ll say, it’s not my first rodeo. This is not like, I mean, he was like there when they invented the rodeo and he still ride in the Bronco bull and it’s no problem for him. And I just thought, you know, Joe looked like he looked a couple of years ago now. That doesn’t mean it’ll be that way when they’re tackling people, but in terms of arm strength and all that, it’s all there poise. so he was that.
Kenny Pickett was sort of nondescript. He didn’t get a ton, they kind of divided the snaps up a lot. And I wish I could tell you something more. It’s like he wasn’t, he made like one really bad throw. There was an interception and a couple of decent throws, but it was like, ho, hum. There again, this is one day, whatever. And the problem, when all of us in the media are talking about this,
Even Mary Kay and Dan Lobby and Ashley who are out there all the time is they’re only out there one day a week So that’s what you say now Like for example, I had a couple of media people there that I trust to see them all and they were telling me how Dylan Gabriel looked really good He did not look good when I was there. He seemed to I Don’t just he made he some nice throws on a short Crossing patterns
David Campbell (06:08.492)
Right.
Terry Pluto (06:29.72)
But some of the times you just kind of looked a little confused, just a little off with the timing. But I mean, they’re thrown to some guys. I’m looking at the roster. I don’t know who these people are. and I don’t know what patterns they were supposed to run, but it is kind of shocking when you see Dylan Gabriel physically standing even next to Shredor Sanders and certainly next to Flacco and going, the guy’s small. He just is. and, so we’ll wait to see, now.
People are gonna hear this and they’re gonna get all excited and they’re gonna want them to start. So who’s left? Who haven’t I talked about?
David Campbell (07:09.634)
It’s yourer
Terry Pluto (07:10.868)
Right. He had a good day. He really did. I mean, there was one time he went to kind of do a handoff and he fell down and, another time where, I thought, he did his, which I hate his, drop back to pass. Here comes the rush. So let’s just drop back 20 yards. Yeah. Backpedaling and I get in trouble. Okay. Those are the two negatives. positives. I thought he saw the field pretty well. He looked like his passes were pretty accurate.
David Campbell (07:30.508)
Pedaling, yeah.
Terry Pluto (07:40.75)
He seemed to be understanding what was going on. And he looked better than I thought. And the nice butt. Please, you know. All right, let’s, can we do common sense? I’m holding the Brown schedule. They opened versus, do you remember who they opened versus? Yes.
David Campbell (07:58.284)
Please, I’m all for that.
David Campbell (08:07.98)
For the regular season? The Bengals. Right.
Terry Pluto (08:09.922)
The games that come. The Bengals, yes. Week number two, they go where? You got it. Week number three, I had to look this one up. Green Bay, Green Bay comes here. But then again, week number four, they go to Detroit. Game number five in London.
David Campbell (08:16.012)
Baltimore?
David Campbell (08:20.61)
the green bay game
David Campbell (08:26.626)
They have Detroit, I remember that one.
David Campbell (08:32.289)
That’s the Minnesota game.
Terry Pluto (08:33.986)
Game number six.
David Campbell (08:36.77)
They come back and go to Pittsburgh, right?
Terry Pluto (08:38.848)
Why would you play Shadr or Sanders or Dylan Gabriel or any other rookie unless the whole franchise in those games? I’m very serious. Why would you do this? It makes no sense. Stop people. Stop, stop, stop.
David Campbell (08:47.446)
You wouldn’t. No, you wouldn’t. Well, we, think we talked, yeah, we, yes. And we, talked about this about a month ago. I think it might’ve been Jimmy Watkins’ column, but he was writing about how every successful rookie quarterback sat for at least half a season and didn’t play. like neither of these rookies should be playing. Once the regular season starts, if you are trusting the data, which the Browns purport to do, right?
Terry Pluto (09:06.029)
Yeah.
David Campbell (09:16.382)
neither of these rookies should be playing until the second half of season. That’s just the way it should be.
Terry Pluto (09:20.876)
Right. it’s just, it’s ridiculous to put them in those games. And I, you know, I don’t want to, well, we got to find out about the quarterbacks. You know what you could, here’s, here is also the problem with that. Let’s just say you start Gabriel just for whatever. So Gabriel comes out and after three games, he’s terrible. Gee, I wonder why that would happen. He played Cincinnati, he played Baltimore and he played Green Bay. And if he managed to survive that, then he gets to play in the dome of Detroit. You will know it won’t be noisy there. So you just.
And now he’s bad. So you know what you say? He can’t play. He’s too small. It’s a mistake. Forget him. See how easy it is to write these people off early in the year.
David Campbell (09:58.406)
Absolutely. And not only the tough road games, but totally upending a team’s routine with the trip to England and the whole bit. It’s just, it’s not, not conducive. You’re totally right.
Terry Pluto (10:05.706)
Yeah, right. If he manages to get to the next, right. But even the first month, and then, then that, so you drop them down and suddenly you act like he’s, you know, worse than is another Deshaun Kaiser or something. I mean, please. And the same thing with Chidor. Chidor, looking at him, you know, physically in a, he has a chance to be an NFL quarterback and probably has a chance at some point to start. But why do we want to, you know, again, put him out?
in that situation. The nice thing, and I know they don’t want to keep four quarterbacks, you hear that, but having Flacco and having Pickett, either one of those guys, especially we know with Joe, Joe could go out there and take a beating and handle it. And that may be what it takes. And if Joe’s out there and he’s hot and they’re winning some games, fine. Okay, great. And meanwhile, the kids could learn.
And I just, here’s what I love. There was not one mention of Deshaun Watson the entire day. I don’t mean, or should there be, right? In other words, that which has hung over the franchise for three plus years is gone. And they could pick whatever quarterback they want based on what I would say objective criteria or at least their own
David Campbell (11:16.054)
Nor should there be.
Terry Pluto (11:35.246)
honest football opinion as opposed to trying to justify a contract, a trade, et cetera. And they have guys to pick from. But I was pleasantly surprised by Shadoor. I was a little disappointed in Pickett. I was hoping something would jump out. Not that he was terrible. It was just, as I mentioned, it was just kind of like, oh, ho, ho. And by the way, we’re talking like maybe 12 to 15 throws, you see these guys, you know, in these different.
red zone things and that, and, Joe looked like Joe and, and Gabriel, thought had kind of a tough time. Whereas people there told me in other ones, he looked really good. I was kind of fired up to see him, but it was just, and I’m sure it’s just like some days that you’re just off a little bit. It seemed like when a guy would, he would go to throw down on out pass and it would just be just off the fingertips, you know, just, just a little bit of off.
So, but I came out of there fairly encouraged that look, you got some guys. This is not who was it? Cody Kessler. And, I forgot who the heck that quarterback room was with, was that with Kaiser Kaiser and, the guy they have from Kansas city. It’s just, you know, where he had a quarterback room where nobody had ever won an NFL game.
David Campbell (12:44.564)
man. Yeah.
David Campbell (12:53.024)
Yeah, Browns fans are still trying to forget their quarterback room.
So yeah, your point about like common sense is so right on because like you said, the media is out there one day a week and next week we’ll be out there three days, right? It’s Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for mini camp, but there’s so much to happen between now and the start of the season in terms of who’s gonna start, you know, what the pecking order is. There’s the practices in Philadelphia that they’re gonna have and the lead up to the preseason games. There’s there’s months to go here. So like these, the people who are making graphics of what happens on a
Terry Pluto (13:37.582)
Okay.
Terry Pluto (13:45.443)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (13:56.238)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
David Campbell (14:06.378)
Wednesday at OTAs? Like, here’s the comparison. Like, let’s just stop and like chill out and let things happen, right? I think that’s basically what we’re saying here. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (14:14.486)
Yeah, I mean, if you want to do it, that’s fine, but that’s, it’s almost irrelevant. When it comes to Sanders, there’s like, based on my emails, what I hear, there’s two camps. One is get them in there right away because you know, the hype around Sir George. And the other is get them out of here. He’s a side show. He doesn’t belong here at all. And how about if it’s in the middle? He’s a young recorder back that needs to sit and needs to work.
and he may end up being okay. mean, physically, if you looked at him and his name was Jones, you would think, he’s an interesting prospect.
David Campbell (14:53.634)
Leave it there. Let him play some football, right? Yeah
Terry Pluto (14:55.294)
Yeah. And let’s see what happens. And the cool thing is, is that, you know, we were talking about the three preseason games they have. I mean, those kids are going to play in those games and we’ll get to see them. We’ll get to see this. Gabriel’s size cause a problem in those games. Does should doers tendency to kind of get happy feet and take off the wrong way. what the rush does that cause a problem? Can they
Can they deliver some stuff under pressure? All that will be seen. Interestingly, they were using some stuff with the Samson kid, the running back from Tennessee. They were splitting him out. So it looked like they were trying to see how he would look in the slot. And they also were throwing several passes to Quention Junkins, who by the way, looked very comfortable catching the ball and running it. And that’s about all I can tell you.
David Campbell (15:53.026)
That’s good. So there were interviews today too and I know that Jim Schwartz spoke today. I think there were a couple things I want to ask you about Terry. What did he have to say about Mason Graham, the number five overall pick out of Michigan, defensive lineman? And then we can talk about what he said about Myles Garrett next. What about Mason Graham?
Terry Pluto (16:10.314)
He has meat on the bone. That’s what he said. Well, in other words, there’s a lot more to develop and to pick from. He mentioned that he really obviously wants to see him against people where they’re tackling and hitting, but he thought that his scheme would help Graham more than Michigan’s team where he was kind of occupying blockers. He said something interesting. said, you know, we always talk about
David Campbell (16:12.918)
I like that.
Terry Pluto (16:39.468)
defensive ends, you know, being your pass rushers, said, but if you think about it, who’s the closest to a quarterback when he drops back to throw, you know, assuming he stays in the pocket, it’s a defensive tackle. And so he said that he basically there was asked about, miles and he said, with great power comes great responsibility. He said he thought miles would respond with his best season ever with the contract and all that.
He said, you know, he went through a lot. He got the deal. He’s back. I’m not real worried about him. know he’ll be in shape. He’ll be here when he needs to be here. And, it was, I don’t think he was blowing smoke on that at all. think that’s exactly what he thought because yeah.
David Campbell (17:25.634)
So I’m interested in that phrase Terry, what do you think he meant when he said with great power comes great responsibility? Of course that’s the line from the Spider-Man movie, but for Miles Gare what does he mean that he wants to see Miles take on great responsibility?
Terry Pluto (17:37.74)
I don’t think he means so much leadership. mean, at this point, Miles’ personality is not going to change a whole lot. This is what you got. Miles could have another huge, he thinks that Miles is set to have his best year that between kind of where he is age-wise versus experience in the NFL and probably maybe some plans that he has for Miles.
He thinks he could really let loose and go. I really believe that I don’t think it’s there and he also said that he said the the great players like miles tend to respond to that type of thing
David Campbell (18:18.038)
higher scrutiny of the contract and the, the, expectation. So that’s interesting. So you didn’t think there was anything in that quote to suggest that miles change what he does and try and be more of a leader on the team and, and, and more rah rah. It was more like you’ve got to produce more than ever because of this. Right. That was kind of what he was saying. Right.
Terry Pluto (18:19.746)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (18:28.755)
I mean, I’m sure they’ll talk
Yeah, bro. Yeah, that’s exactly it. Get back to defensive player the year, you know, that kind of stuff. I think Schwartz is not.
know, Miles Garrett is not going to turn around and turn into, say, Donovan Mitchell, you know, for that. You Mitchell’s the leader, Mitchell’s the star, the leader, the spokesman for the franchise, you know. Mitchell’s very careful in what he says. he’s, know, Donovan is that, that’s not Miles. And, you know, he doesn’t...
particularly need to be. You know, he talked about the need to do two things. You know, we got to get off the field more on third down. We were number one in that last in 23, that full way down. And he says, you know, we have all these tapes of like Denzel and other people getting their hands on balls. He goes, we got to catch them. He goes, the interceptions actually were there. We just got to catch them. Yeah.
David Campbell (19:38.562)
Too many pass breakups, not enough interceptions. Yep.
Terry Pluto (19:41.95)
And that was about it. But there’s meat on the bone for Mason Graham.
David Campbell (19:47.746)
All right, there we go. All right. So there’s an interesting, we got an interesting email from Bob, listener, who writes in, says, greetings. I love the in-depth knowledge shared regarding the five quarterbacks on the roster. However, there’s one story that appears to be under-reported, a story about why Kenny Pickett was sent from Pittsburgh to Philly while his play in a bad Matt Canada offense was part of it. There’s a single most contributing reason was Pickett’s refusal to dress as the number three quarterback for a game after returning from injury.
It was this refusal to dress for a game that soured his teammates and coaches. Pickett ultimately asked to be traded and Pittsburgh accommodated. So as a report on the QB personalities and leadership and pre-draft behavior, let’s also look into the entire QB room, especially of the leader in the clubhouse to start the season. So thanks for that Bob. sent the symbol for the draft and I’ve kind of been saving it. But so, so basically when he was in Pittsburgh, he had a high ankle sprain, right? Terry was the story and he did not dress. What else happened here? Let’s, let’s.
Terry Pluto (20:40.717)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. He also, well, he said he was not medically cleared to play and so he didn’t play. I really believe, yeah, he wanted to be traded, but that came after they signed Russell Wilson. And I think he saw Russell Wilson in this and that it’s time to get out of there. He went to Philadelphia and.
David Campbell (20:46.316)
parse this out.
Terry Pluto (21:11.336)
sat as a backup quarterback, got good reviews for how he handled it. I don’t think Penny Kenny Pickett’s a big head case or anything of that sort.
David Campbell (21:21.676)
Yeah, and coming off the injury, it was, it was like a back and forth between him and a reporter or the reporter didn’t have anything source basically saying he wouldn’t play, but I’m standby my story and pickets. Like I was injured. I wasn’t cleared to play. And it just kind of went away, but like to the Browns, like this and the players on the Browns, like this is ancient history, right? Like it might as well have been 20 years ago to them.
Terry Pluto (21:35.051)
one from now.
Terry Pluto (21:41.974)
Right. If there had been reports out of Philly that he didn’t work hard or he didn’t do his homework and he wasn’t, you know, prepared, et cetera. that’s different, but I, what they traded DTR and what a fifth round pick for him. I mean, he’s got one, one year left on his contract. If he acts up, he’s out of there. They got four quarterbacks, you know, you know, one thing Joe Flacco ain’t acting up, you know, he’ll just wait his turn or take his turn when it’s there.
right away. that’s, I think that’s how they do it. I mean, a lot of times, GMs, not just Andrew Berry, they kind of doubled back to guys they liked originally, you know, Barry took two years to trade for Jerry Judy. And remember it was like, at that point he was considered sort of a disappointment in Denver, maybe even a bit of a headcase because he, you know, wasn’t happy not getting the ball or whatnot. Why he came here and it’s sell. well,
Pickett is another guy that Barry’s talked about. He liked them in the draft and that. Dan Lobby said, he mentioned being at the senior bull, Dan, you know, our colleague. And he said, he’s watching, this is when Pickett was a rookie. He’s watching them run some place where Pickett’s taking snaps under center and doing some play fakes and throwing the ball downfield, you know, wicking good. And he said, I’m thinking there, but why, but Kevin Stefanski loves this.
watching it because Stefanski was there. Now, maybe he did. know, granted that was whenever he came out, 22 or whatever year it was, but they were already deep in the Watson ways. Dan mentioned that to me today and I thought, that’s interesting. So I’m just not worried about that. just think that sometimes, you know, things can go haywire.
David Campbell (23:26.69)
Seeing that and making that connection, yeah, it all comes around.
Terry Pluto (23:36.354)
And it had the big thing was while he was in Philadelphia and maybe he didn’t handle that well picket, but also I also know that young men do mature.
David Campbell (23:50.124)
We have seen that many, many times over the years in Cleveland sports haven’t we?
Terry Pluto (23:53.708)
Yeah, including in my own life, I can tell you that some of the stuff I did at 25. It’s like, why did I say that? Why did it?
David Campbell (23:56.098)
Me too!
I am right there with you. All right. Hey, we should mention real quick, really excited about this news. Mary Kay Cabot, our colleague, has received a prestigious award from the Pro Football Writers Association, the Bill Nunn Award, which is basically the top award that that organization gives out. And Mary Kay is going to be honored as part of the Hall of Fame ceremonies this summer down in Canton, including at the Enshrinese Dinner. It’s just a tremendous award. She is the second Cleveland
football writer to ever win that award and the first one was Chuck Heaton and that is some pretty amazing company. Yeah. So congratulations Mary Kay. We’re just really excited about all of it.
Terry Pluto (24:34.102)
I was gonna say I thought I was shook, yeah. Yeah.
I was talking to Mary Kay. I am going to do a column on her as it gets a little closer. and you know, she was saying that, she works real hard as she called it to create content, you know, stories, podcasts and that. And I said, Mary Kay, the thing that amazes me is you don’t get bored with this stuff. I mean, the Browns really are football’s version of Groundhog Day. They don’t have a quarterback. They don’t have a quarterback. They don’t have a quarter. They got seven quarterbacks. No, they don’t have a quarterback.
They can’t even put together not two playoff seasons in a row. They’ve not put together two winning seasons. This is not a high bar in a row since the days of Bernie. I mean, this is like ridiculous. And she’s been knocking her brains out covering this stuff. And she does it, you know, with a lot of connections with agents, the financial stuff. I admire that because, know, I did, unlike, frankly, unlike a lot of
You sort of fall into that early on and they’re kind of anointed as special ones when they’re younger. I did 13 years of beat work, 14 if you count one year of double A baseball, six years of major league baseball, seven years of the NBA. And so I know how hard beats are. And I didn’t have pro football, but I had the other two. And boy, some of those seasons when it’s bad, it almost is like being in a bad marriage or something.
You’re stuck there. Yeah. And for her, how was it 30 years or how long has she been doing this? It goes back to Belichick. So it’s like, so that’s like 92. And so it’s like 30 some years and, and the freshness she brings it. That’s one of the most things that are admirable to me. And along with, you know, just the fact that she’s good at what she does. I mean, our staff.
David Campbell (26:07.33)
for decades.
David Campbell (26:14.88)
Yeah, I’d have to look that up. It’s... Yeah, it’s been a while.
Terry Pluto (26:36.962)
And then you turn around and you look at Paul Hoyes. Paul Hoyes missed the Hall of Fame by eight votes. And there was like 400 people that voted. Thomas Boswell from the Washington Post beat him up by eight votes. So hopefully they’ll put him on the ballot again, just like I think Tom Hamilton was on the ballot like three or four times before he gets in this year. But the point being, so you have Mary Kay winning that none award. The Hoyes nearly making the Hall of Fame. I don’t think there’s, and I don’t think there’s any.
David Campbell (27:02.612)
And he will.
Terry Pluto (27:05.876)
staff in the country right now that has to be people like that. And then of course, I really believe Fedor is going to follow in the steps one day of Brian Winters to win hers, who was a plain dealer, a basketball writer. And, he and I go back to the beacon journal. I, for a while he was my portage. And now I turned to him periodically for guidance as I do with Chris on the NBA. And I are, I’m not, I’m just saying it’s I, we, you know, there, I,
It’s a strong staff with those three others are coming along behind them, but that’s really powerful.
David Campbell (27:45.154)
We work with some outstanding people. We’re really lucky, Terry. congratulations to Mary Kay. And you’re absolutely right, Terry. Poinsett will be in the Hall of Fame in just a matter of time. And we’ll be pulling for him. All right, well, the Browns, to continue, will have mini camp next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. And then they’ll be riding the train down to some vacation or whatever they got going and be back for training camp. it’s happening fast. So all right, I think we’re good on the Browns, right? All right.
Terry Pluto (27:46.936)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (28:12.749)
That is it.
David Campbell (28:14.664)
I did have one. I was kind of interested in this. I thought it would. It’s kind of a football thing. So the Bears have hired Ben Johnson from Detroit as their head coach. And he comes in and he’s trying to just change the culture there. And one of the early discussions he had with DJ Moore, their star receiver was your, your body language is terrible. I was watching you on film last year and when there’d be a bad throw or a bad play or something bad happened, your shoulder, like your shoulders would slump. was like, you look like your cat died.
And he’s like, I don’t want to see that anymore. so DJ Moore, they asked him about it this week and they said, what did, what did Ben Johnson tell you about your body language? And he said, just don’t do it. Just keep it inside. Talk about it later. Don’t put, just don’t put it on film. Don’t put it on TV. I did it once and we nipped it in the bud and it never happened again. I just said, I ain’t never going to do it again. So yeah. So it got me thinking like, who do you think are the best body language athletes in Cleveland right now? And maybe some of the ones who.
Terry Pluto (28:53.565)
Hahaha!
Terry Pluto (29:04.59)
Good for him. Good for him.
David Campbell (29:14.39)
kind of show it when things go bad. They show that they’re upset and maybe that’s not a great thing to let the opponent, what’s the old saying from the Godfather, right? Don’t ever let anybody outside the family know what you’re thinking ever again. But yeah.
Terry Pluto (29:24.758)
Yeah, well, he’s not there anymore, but Jim Karenczyk was terrible. James Karenczyk was awful when things got bad. you know, umpires or fielders are like, you know, I was watching Karenczyk. I guess I missed it when you went to the hall of fame, you know, it was kind of like that.
David Campbell (29:30.974)
right, yep.
Terry Pluto (29:43.522)
The counterpoint, it wasn’t so much this past year, but the year before in the playoffs against Orlando, especially in a little bit of Boston, when Darius Garland was having a really hard time and you saw that, and there’s Mitchell. I said, Mitchell’s the full package. Mitchell’s one of the best combinations of stars, leaders, et cetera, I have ever seen in Cleveland sports. And he was.
David Campbell (29:56.672)
That’s exactly what I was thinking of.
Terry Pluto (30:11.692)
really speaking faith into Garland. Mitchell, this year, I thought Darius there. Now Darius was lumping around, you could tell he was hurting both mentally and physically in the playoffs. In fact, there was one point I think in the last game, I would have just pulled him. And Darius hasn’t grown up to do, he just does. Doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy or anything, but he does have some grown up to do.
I was trying to think with the Browns. All right, well, you know who was flat out awful, just awful.
David Campbell (30:45.078)
I have a Browns one that I think, yeah, so he.
All right, well, I had a good one. Nick Chubb’s body language never, ever, ever changed. I mean, they could be losing by three touchdowns or up by three touchdowns and he could have an 80 yard touchdown run and he never let his body language show if he was fatigued or sore or any of it. And I think he’s got to be one of the best Cleveland athletes in terms of body language the last 10 years. So, yes.
Terry Pluto (30:52.024)
Good, then I’ll give a good one, yes. Yes.
Terry Pluto (31:13.346)
Yeah, Jim Brown was the same exact way, David, the same way. And it was, it was like that spirit of Brown, you know, the only difference was after Brown got hit, he was stayed down on the field for like an extra five or eight seconds just to rest. You know, he said, then he would get up, trudging to the, they’re not by body just there. And then of course rip off a 20 yard run.
David Campbell (31:28.396)
Like he was done. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (31:36.686)
That was the only difference but both of them scored touchdown flipped the the old Jim Brown line act like you’ve been there before Paul Brown said it too In the end zone after they scored Now football OBJ was awful. He was just flat-out awful. It was embarrassing how bad he was You know, think about I’ll tell you a guy whose body language I thought was really good under horrible Circumstances was Tim couch. I know this poor guy getting beat all that
David Campbell (31:50.401)
Yes.
David Campbell (32:03.281)
that’s a good one.
Terry Pluto (32:07.002)
and just hung in there. And that’s really hard in that case. know, the really good pitchers they had here, I was thinking like Corey Kluber and Bieber, boy, they were just like machines on the mound. know, they, Oral Hersheiser, some of my favorites. Because it’s really hard, you make a good pitch and then, you know,
the guy can’t turn a double play or whatever. You really gotta kind of turn around, bite through your lower lip and pick up the rosin bag, throw it down and then get the ball.
David Campbell (32:47.116)
Yeah, it’s interesting you say that, Terry. I was trying to think of who on the Guardians kind of lets their, wears their emotions on their sleeve like that. And I don’t think there’s, I can think of anybody right off the top. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (32:55.384)
Josh Naylor was the last one. I mean, he did hit himself in the head with bat when he wore a helmet.
David Campbell (33:02.54)
But these guys are so conditioned to like, hey, whatever happens, we’re moving on. Like just keep grinding, keep grinding, keep It’s a very keep grinding mentality in that clubhouse.
Terry Pluto (33:07.051)
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, you watched and you watch Jose. I mean, the other day it wasn’t, they was mad at something else, but it’s like, uh, think it was last night. He popped up on a pitch and he just, it’s like, he, he kind of squeezed the bat. He’s going back to the dugout. Like you want to turn to sawdust. Like, how can I swing at that pitch? You know, um, Jose, I mean, Jose’s another Jose’s like, um, Donovan only, only Jose doesn’t do the interviews, you know,
But the rest of it is just, he’s out there. You know, he loves being here. He wants to win here. The players know that he’s got their back. it’s, mean, we’re fortunate in that the two teams that are really good, the two best players in the two teams that are really good are ones that coaches point to and say, do what that guy does. I know that.
vote is very excited to be getting Bieber back because he’ll say, like, Terry Francona would say when Kluber was here, do what he does. In fact, Bieber learned to do what he does. Carrasco told me he said he started doing what Bieber did. Well now, you know, is that, cause that’s, starting staff’s pretty young and Tanner’s is growing, but Bieber will come in and, you know, do what Bieber does.
And that’s important. But by the way, because a lot of it has to do with what you do between starts and everything else.
David Campbell (34:43.102)
Absolutely. Yeah be Beiber be the Yeah, yeah, I like that so the I’m gonna be watching the Browns this season to see if any of this happens because they’re gonna lose some games and A quarterback, especially when somebody runs the wrong route you get pinned with an interception I’m gonna be watching to see what the different body language I think they can tell you a lot about how a team is functioning and how a guy is coping with the pressure
Terry Pluto (34:45.496)
Be Beaver, yeah. It’s just like, Corey, be, you know.
Terry Pluto (34:55.402)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (35:04.393)
along the ways.
Terry Pluto (35:09.954)
You know, you know, I wasn’t real high on Chadoor in the draft or whatever, but one of the things I gave him tremendous credit for the couple of games that I watched where he just, it was like Tim couch. He’s taking these terrible beatings in that and never wants least body language. Why did he flinch? Did he seem to be shaken on that? now sometimes as I mentioned, when the rush came, I thought he got happy feet and kind of panicked a little bit, but when he went back to the huddle, when he was on the sidelines, none of that stuff.
So that was commendable.
David Campbell (35:43.19)
Alright, well we’re gonna get into the Guardians as we come back from the break here. Let’s take a break real quick and I did want to remind everybody we’ve already read one email. If you have a thought, a question, a comment, a fun sports story or a travel story you want to share on the podcast, send it to sports at cleveland.com and just put Terry’s talking in the subject line. We’ve also gotten in some really good emails about Tom Hamilton. Keep sending those and we’re gonna start reading those over the next few weeks as we approach his Hall of Fame weekend in July. So we’ll take a break here Terry, right?
Terry Pluto (36:13.197)
Yes.
David Campbell (36:13.782)
Alright, let’s do it and we come back. We’re going to get into the Guardians and more when we return on Terry’s Talk.
David Campbell (39:18.38)
We are back on Terry’s talking. Did want to do the weekly commercial for Terry’s newsletter. Comes out every Wednesday at noon. Some great stuff in there today. Everything from Wyoming to some cool NFL draft stats. You can sign up by going to cleveland.com slash Pluto. Go to the blue bar at the top and you can subscribe. So, on to the Guardians, Terry. We were talking about this last week, right? Like the...
Division leading Detroit Tigers are in Chicago. They have split with the White Sox so far. They have two games left against the White Sox who are struggling mightily again. The Guardians have two more games in New York against the Yankees. Right now the Guardians are 32 and 27, six and a half behind Detroit. They’re in third place. Yeah, baseball is baseball, right? Anybody can win, but if they don’t win one of these games in New York, they could be eight and a half out theoretically coming home, which is a big number for.
early July. You want to start with last night’s game? It was a tough 3-2 loss for the Guardians. What did you think about what you saw last night? I know there was a lot of discussion about Tanner Bybee and keep him in, pull him, what they should have done. Do want to talk about that first maybe?
Terry Pluto (40:29.14)
Okay, first it’s a first guess for me and after six innings, I really thought they were taking him out. In fact, he went to the dugout and he sat and he could tell he was sweating. He looked tired. And I was surprised they rolled him out in the seventh. And at that point, I think he’d allowed only one run and he gave up two homers.
Like within 10 seconds, it seemed it was really fast. I’m sure within a minute. Back to back home runs. Now it was a first guess on my part where I said, well, he’s probably done. And that was not the case. know, votes said there was no indication. I wasn’t, I did go look at, he did strike out the last two hitters. had a one, two, three, sixth inning and struck out the last two, but he was at, mean, these guys don’t go much over a hundred pitches anymore. He was like 95 pitches.
And the one big problem with Tanner is he’s been throwing home runs all over the place this year. And he was playing in Yankee stadium where it’s easy to hit home runs and the bullpen had been rested because they were off the day before. So I figured, you know, here comes the Gaddis, you know, Kate Smith, whatever, you know, cause say all those guys were available. but he rolled them out there and, I just.
I don’t spend a lot of time second guessing managers, I just found it odd.
David Campbell (41:59.372)
Yeah, all the signs were pointing to that. then they, what he finished with 107 pitches, I think. and.
Terry Pluto (42:04.366)
Yeah, I think he was like a 94 or something of that sort. Yeah. And it was a tough, I mean, that lineup, that’s a tough 94 pitches. know, they always, these guys use all this high leverage stuff and everything else. Well, that was high leverage and.
David Campbell (42:07.894)
going into the seventh. Yeah, yeah.
David Campbell (42:19.618)
mean, that whole lineup is pretty much high leverage with the money they spend.
Terry Pluto (42:21.294)
Yeah, it’s just, you know, that, so they’re that, that bothered me a bit. Also, as I said, the bullpen was rested. Oh, time for, you know, we had discussed Klaus A going bad earlier. Well, in his last 15 games, he has an ERA of 1.23. I forgot how many saves in a row. has something like eight. He’s got himself back together completely. And by the way, that is very commendable where you go.
closer falls apart for a while and then pulls it back together. Remember they rested him for a week and maybe that’s all he needed.
David Campbell (42:56.938)
And he’s like, he’s back to what he looked like last year in terms of you’re kind of expecting three pitch strikeouts from him again, which we haven’t said for a while. So it’s really something to see. I wanted to ask kind of a general question to you. Do you feel like this? So there’s help on the way, right? Like Shane Bieber is going to pitch down in Akron on Friday. It’s his, it’s his first kind of meaningful baseball. We’re in a game that counts. means might be coming back this summer or there’s.
Terry Pluto (43:00.002)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (43:15.832)
Yeah.
David Campbell (43:25.57)
So there’s going to be some pitching help coming, but you’ve got you look at the line up here I think there’s three guys batting over 260 right now, and do you feel like this team’s? Gonna have some help on the way and it’s best baseball is ahead of it or you feel like this is what they’re gonna be which is kind of struggling to stay above 500 and and Struggling to challenge for the division. What what are you feeling right now?
Terry Pluto (43:34.316)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (43:50.786)
Well, if you look at it, this is the first half of the year, other than Kwon and of course Jose. And now by the way, Carlos, I put him in that group. These guys are at, you know, all-star or above expected level. Kwon and Jose at all-star level. Carlos is by the way in the, I wrote this down.
Yeah. In the month of May, he is hitting three 20 in his last 30 games. So, that’s been, that’s been a positive, but there’s something, you know, I’m a big man’s art off and he’s driving me nuts, David. He’s trying to pull everything. Pull and it’s killing them. Last 104 bat at bats. He’s got three homers and he, know, he’s batting one something or other.
And they need to just get those tapes of him when that ball’s outside, just hit it the left center. You can just go back and do that. You know, that’s sort of the problem. came out because he’s never been considered a guy that’s going to hit 35 home runs. That’s not been the scouting report on him. And he had some, those home runs early. And I think it kind of got into his head the wrong way and they need to fix that guy. so that’s, you know, that’s a.
That’s a positive there in terms of what they can do. Cause this guy’s done it before. It’s not like he, it’s not like when you watch big Christmas and you see last year, could see a trouble with sliders outside and breaking pitches and that that was a problem that was going to get worse. And I mean, the big Christmas thing is so bad right now. I mean, he’s three for 29 on the year. at 146 OPS is three 99. mean,
Lee sent him to the Miners, let him play. You could bring back Jonathan Rodriguez if you want, right handed hitter. I think he’s sitting 323. And just to change it up, him just sitting there playing once or twice a week, that’s not gonna help him. And it’s not gonna help Cleveland.
David Campbell (46:07.424)
Yeah, they need some change, right? I think they need kind of a jolt of energy, a different dynamic, somebody who can deliver some hits. It’s just, they’re not, they’re not getting enough from enough guys. And you’ve been talking about CAFUS for a month and he’s still not up.
Terry Pluto (46:09.419)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (46:20.266)
Yeah. He’s still there. No, I had, wrote about this after we did this there, there, they’re concerned about his defense and they’re really working with that, but they’re, they’re doing that. they’ve got that thing going, I think at high gear to try and get them ready to come up or CAFIS left-handed hitter too. They really need another right-handed bat. cause Nolan Jones has started to come around to pair with him. That’s why I mentioned Rodriguez, but they’re working on CAFIS, but I.
I was told he just was not been very good out there at all.
David Campbell (46:53.558)
Yeah, well he’s only played what maybe 15 games out in the outfield since they’ve tried this experiment, right? Yeah.
Terry Pluto (46:58.478)
Right, had done it a little bit before. DeLotter, fans that want DeLotter, they’ll say he hit a double or something. He’s only up to three or four games a week after the hernia surgery and other. He’s just not ready to come up. their view is he just needs to pull. Frank, he needs to show he’ll be healthy for a month or so and see if they could bring him up. That’s why I mentioned Rodriguez. To me, he seems like the logical one.
I don’t know, I don’t have real strong opinion on Rodriguez. I don’t watch him and think, I think he’s gonna hit. But I know this, Big Curse-mas ain’t gonna hit. He’s a mess.
David Campbell (47:37.356)
Well, yeah, I like I think you said, I looked up Rodriguez’s numbers. think he’s batting, 318, 856 OPS. that’s, you get two thirds of that. still ahead of where you’re at, right? Yeah.
Terry Pluto (47:45.26)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (47:49.55)
something right. mean, the Columbus numbers have always been inflated. I mean, you saw how bad Brian Roquia was, right? When he was here, he goes down there and he’s played 19 games. He’s got five homers and 20 RBIs. He’s hitting 276, 933 OPS. Now maybe things have come together for him or whatever, but you always kind of watch those Columbus numbers. Nonetheless,
Kayfus has kind of hit everywhere and he’ll probably hit it. Just like I know the water. I wrote this huge thing on the water when he was at Lake County and went out there and just fell in baseball love with him. but that was a couple injuries ago, but I really think if the water stays healthy, he’ll hit, but he’s got it. You know, basically you gotta get one guy healthy and you gotta teach the other guy to play the outfield.
David Campbell (48:41.706)
it’s taking time. I did I know a lot of Guardians fans have been clamoring about the catching situation and lack of offensive production for the last few years, but I did want to pass along some happy news for them. Cooper Engel playing for the rubber ducks. I think he’s 23, but he had he had a four hit night last night and he’s batting 298 right now. I think with a 919 OPS. So we might see him move up to Columbus sometime this summer, which would be good for him.
Terry Pluto (48:42.956)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (48:48.738)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (48:55.17)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (49:00.3)
I think it’s a...
Yeah.
I saw him in class A. can’t remember. I think this was last year and I really liked him. and he was, I think he played a clumps in or somewhere like that. and he’s a, he’s a pretty good catcher. He’s a guy that can hit. so he could come quick and you know, bow, bow nailer looks, he just looks lost at the plate. he’s, and, and so we’ll, we’ll see, but the,
Kobe Hough, think is catching a lot of AAA and he’s good defensively. don’t know if he’ll hit, but that’s, that’s where I have to admit. I I want my, I don’t want my catcher to be an automatic out, but I’m not obsessed with like some fans. So the catcher has got to hit. I mean, I think the average catcher in the big leagues hits like 224 or something. And most of them, you just want them to really do a good job. I want balls blocked in the dirt. Remember,
couple of years ago, who did they sign? used to be with Seattle is a veteran catcher. They brought in here and he was terrible. You know, he was beyond, couldn’t walk balls in the dirt or anything. It’s when they let yeah. And the ball, yeah, it was, and they paid him like 6 million or something. And, and he, you just showed you how back as he came in after hedges and Roberto Perez and that, that was when they kind of switched.
David Campbell (50:18.656)
Yep, how quickly we forget. He wasn’t around for three months.
David Campbell (50:26.711)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (50:36.958)
over from the catchers and it was was a bad it was a bad move and I will say this I think Bo keeps getting better defensively and he’s throwing well but I mean he has shown an ability to hit some home runs and doubles and things in the minors and once in a while he’s ball of the park but he’s he’s struggling
David Campbell (50:58.69)
All right, part of your newsletter today, Terry, I think you were writing about why Jose Ramirez is the best Cleveland player that you’ve seen live and in person. Do wanna talk about that for minute? thought we should see, listeners should send us in like who they think is the best they’ve seen in person, right? I think that’d be fun.
Terry Pluto (51:06.54)
Yep.
Terry Pluto (51:13.627)
Right. I’ve asked them. Yeah, right. This is, and I’m talking about all around players. Of course, Albert, you could argue whether Albert Bell or Manny Ramirez is the best hitter, you know, would be, or throw Tommy in too, if you want.
Manny was probably the best pure hitter I’ve ever seen her to Cleveland. I didn’t see Triss speaker or Lou Butro, but, um, those two guys there. But when you add into what Jose is one of like, what 14 guys or something in major league history with 250 homers and 250 steals. And here he is. Yeah. And at the age of 32, he’s still going.
David Campbell (51:49.974)
in the only third basement.
Terry Pluto (51:56.206)
I mean, right now he’s four years into that new contract they gave him in 22. And he’s, you know, this is probably the best start he’s ever been off to. And he’s above average, the third. He’s a terrific base runner, not just stealing bases, but running the bases. He’s just, you know, he’s a, I think he’s the B a seventh all-star season. I’ll just ask who’s better, better all around player in Cleveland that you’ve watched. Yeah.
David Campbell (52:24.054)
Yeah, let us know. that into sports at cleveland.com and an email and we will try and get some of those on next week.
Terry Pluto (52:27.736)
The nice thing is they have some good players here. Of course Kenny Lofton was faster and Omar Vizcal was above all, at in my mind, at shortstop. But when you add in everything like Jose, it’s pretty remarkable.
David Campbell (52:44.33)
and he plays every day, brings it every day. So, all right, well, the Guardians are in New York as we talked about, wrapping up that series and then Friday they returned to progressive field to take on the Houston Astros in a weekend series. And then they have the Reds at home Monday through Wednesday next week. And then they are on a nine game swing out West to Seattle, San Francisco. And this is weird to say Sacramento to play the athletics. So that’ll be a long trip and Michael long way to determining how
Terry Pluto (52:46.01)
Every day.
Terry Pluto (53:08.974)
Yeah.
David Campbell (53:14.7)
how they’re gonna be in the division this year in terms of challenging or not challenging. So, all right, some Cavs, Terry. You wrote about what Cavs fans can learn from the NBA finals. And I think there’s a lot of Cavs fans who are kind of living vicariously or I don’t know what the right word is through the Indiana Pacers, because they wanna see how this is gonna turn out. But how do you think Cavs fans should feel about this matchup we have?
Terry Pluto (53:34.979)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (53:41.976)
I think some of us are still programmed to like when LeBron and Steph Curry were playing each other all the time in the finals. I mean, there’s a stretch from the year of 2007, the first time LeBron went to the finals in Cleveland, to 2020 when he won the title with the Lakers. That’s a 14 year span in which a LeBron James team, he took three different teams.
to the NBA finals, 10 out of 14 years. I, know, and then Steph Curry, they went five straight years and I think another year they won. So he’s been to at least six of them, but all that ended like in 21 or 22, something like that. But anyway, what I looked at was the last six years of NBA playoffs, finals, teams in the finals. So that means there’s, you’re talking about 12 matchups.
10 different teams have been in the finals out of those 12 matchups. And if you turn around and then look at the two repeaters are Miami and Boston, that’s it. So that tells you, and it should tell me that, all right, they didn’t make it, but it’s not like there’s a super team that has slammed the door shut on Cleveland.
I wanted to know who was predicting a year ago at this time that we would see OKC and Indiana in the finals.
David Campbell (55:19.094)
Nobody that I saw.
Terry Pluto (55:19.98)
Nobody. Yeah, I mean, that’s, you know, so you look at that, teams are having trouble repeating, they’re having trouble even getting back there.
David Campbell (55:30.844)
And unlike baseball, like there are teams in baseball that I don’t think can ever win a championship. I think it’s gotten better in the NBA. Like I don’t know that the Sacramento Kings could ever win an NBA or OKC or any of these teams where, you know, everybody wanted to play for the Knicks or the Lakers or the Celtics at one point and they would just flock there, except for the LeBron years in Cleveland. But this with the second apron that you know, you’ve been writing about and Chris Fedor and Ethan Sands, our Cavs reporters have been writing about it makes it very tough for teams that are
Terry Pluto (55:35.766)
No.
David Campbell (55:59.574)
with high salaries to do much with their roster. And that has opened the door for these younger middle market teams to just step in and make it to the finals. It’s really been something.
Terry Pluto (56:09.56)
I was texting with a prominent NBA coach, he’s a friend of mine, and he wrote back, said, well, the NBA wanted parity and they got it. And the NBA wanted to give all its market size teams a shot at it and they got it. I mean, I have it in my story today. think it was Indiana’s like the 25th media market or something and Oklahoma City is like 46. I mean, this would not happen. Yeah, the reason that
David Campbell (56:34.934)
Yeah, 47. Yeah, I had it right here.
Terry Pluto (56:38.772)
happens is because the NBA, this would fix a lot of baseball. If they had the NBA maximum contract rules, where most of these max contracts are four or five years and that’s it, they’re worth a lot of money, but it’s not 13 years or 10 years. Because if you’re in a middle market baseball thing, you think, all right, I’m going to go, you know, five years and 200 million for this guy. And I’m thinking, no,
the back of my mind, you know, he’s a star, if it doesn’t work out and weren’t bad within two or three years, I could still trade them. He only has two years left. So they’re more likely to go in on that. And that that has really helped the NBA is that the way the maximum contract situation limits, there’s a maximum amount of money, but more importantly, limits the years.
David Campbell (57:31.286)
Yeah, and baseball is just still the wild, wild west in terms of pay everybody what you want and everybody just deal with it. So I don’t know that we’re ever going to see that, but it would be a cool thing to try for the competitive nature of it.
Terry Pluto (57:38.104)
Yeah.
It’s an obvious fix it just is and Well, I mean the players association if you were though David to offer them as they would say more for the working-class players as opposed to the five or less percent of the players who would ever qualify for a maximum contract you might have a chance of making this for example the
David Campbell (57:46.448)
Well, not for the Players Association. I mean, they want the money.
Terry Pluto (58:11.01)
first three years of your major league career before you’re not even eligible for arbitration, you’re almost working on what amounts to a minimum contract your first three years. And then the next three years arbitration, if they were to go into that somehow, and, you know, maybe make those first three years you set, it’s like, you know, a million, 2 million, 3 million, something like that, as opposed to
There’s other things I think that’s you might be able to get a trade-off there on the high end because that would Yeah, right that would that would impact far more players than one soda or these other guys, know fully when one door came up or whatnot, so It’s a it’s an interesting thought
David Campbell (58:44.492)
kind of flattened the salary structure across the league.
David Campbell (58:59.778)
It’ll be cool to see what that looked like. No doubt. all right. Again, I feel like Cavs fans are kind of living through other teams a little bit here, but the New York Knicks fired, fired Tibbado this week. And if you’re a Cavs fan, immediately thought back to last year when JB Bickerstaff was let go and Kenny Atkinson was brought in, but the Knicks really apparently feel like they need to make a change at head coach to get this thing to the next level. So what was your take on that? I didn’t want to mention Ethan Sands as a really
Terry Pluto (59:01.676)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (59:10.018)
Yeah.
David Campbell (59:28.874)
Interesting take on that today basically where he says if you’re going to be living in the NBA of a decade ago And you’re not going to be forward thinking about the way the game is played now. You’re not going to last long But what did you think about that?
Terry Pluto (59:40.782)
I I thought Ethan raised some interesting points. did read it. But to act like Tom Thibodeau goes back to the days of the center jump with George Mike and it is a bit much, you I mean, yeah, he may be living in the past, but this is the first time in 25 years, the Knicks have made the conference finals. It’s the first time since the nineties that they’ve had back to back games winning seasons of 50 wins or more.
David Campbell (59:51.266)
You
Terry Pluto (01:00:08.032)
And he had been there five years and went to the playoffs four times. I mean, I’m sure Tibbs is sitting there going, well, okay, maybe I play my starters too much or whatever, but exactly what did I do wrong? But I also think that sometimes what teams do, and we’ll see if, for example, how it works out in Cleveland, the old going from good to great. And the temptation is, okay, this coach has got us to good.
can the next coach get us to great? know, that’s because clearly JV Bickerstaff is a really good coach. mean, it’s Detroit and they hadn’t had a winning season in eight years and you know, bang, got them into the playoffs and they had a winning season and they play defense. You know, you want to say that Stone Age basketball, fine, but it’s no, it’s winning basketball. And the problem always is when you fire somebody, you know, who do you have in mind? At least when the Cavs fired
JB, they had Kenny in mind. They liked what he did in Brooklyn. they were, they thought his style of offense, his style of leadership would work. It wasn’t like they were hiring a guy who had never been a head coach before. where you fire Tibbadoe and say they hire whether it’s Johnny Bryant or somebody else. Brian is a Cavs assistant who’s not been a head coach before. And you drop this guy into the New York market. I may add.
where there’s a lot more attention. That’s a tough, tough assignment. And then you’re taking over a team that basically you’re firing that coach, you’re saying, you know what, you better go to the finals.
David Campbell (01:01:51.36)
Yeah, it’s a tough place to win. I never understood why New York is the mecca of basketball either, but that’s a discussion for another day. They’ve won a championship forever. Yeah. The college is all played there and yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:01:53.827)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:01:57.806)
That the one because it goes right. goes back to the 50s and 60s when they played a lot of especially colleges game. Yes. When the NIT was national, which is big as the NCAA tournament because it was at Madison Square Garden. Madison Square Garden also was the hub of some of the biggest gambling scandals back in the 50s. at the, I forgot what was NYU or city college in New York. Yeah.
David Campbell (01:02:25.056)
Mecca of point shaving.
Terry Pluto (01:02:27.81)
Cause when I did the tall tales of the NBA, the fifties and sixties has done the same oral history style as loose balls. And the guys that talk about is probably like now everybody’s going out point shaving and all the, or pointing at point, you know, differentials, that kind of stuff on the best that were being made, you know, back in the court or before the game or at halftime, with the different bookies. But that’s, that’s really where it comes from.
David Campbell (01:02:58.102)
All right, Terry, we can talk about Darius Garland here. We got a few emails or we have a trade proposal from a listener. I’d like to do one and save the other so we can spend some time on both of these. Which one do you wanna do? Okay. So I appreciate all the emails that our listeners have sent in on Darius Garland. I’ve got them all saved and we will get to them next week, our next podcast, not next week. All right, so this is from Jim Slama. I hope I got your name right, Jim.
Terry Pluto (01:03:05.614)
Who wants it? What’s their trade?
Let’s trade.
David Campbell (01:03:24.372)
And he says, Hi Terry, I love your column from Chicago. Go Cavs. Here’s my proposed trade to float after the NBA finals. Jared Allen and Darius Garland plus $5 million for Yanis Antecumpo and Pat Conaton from the Bucks. What do you think? So I did feed this into the trade machine and it works like even I think with even up even without the $5 million. I guess they might throw that into sweeten the deal or whatever for one side or the other. But
The trade apparently works in the trade machine and now we can look at the merits of it in terms of basketball. What do you think?
Terry Pluto (01:04:00.802)
I think it works before, first of all, think it works before July 1st, because I think then the cast at the second apron. For example, when you’re in the second apron, you cannot add money into a deal. Generally, it’s almost requires you to trade one player for one player. You can’t put aggregate contracts together. I’m not going to get all of it, but that’s why the second apron thing is a problem. And I think the cast would have until July 1st to do that.
I simply ask you this, if you’re in Milwaukee, would you do it?
David Campbell (01:04:33.3)
I would. Yeah, because I think, I think Darius Garland, he’s got a long career ahead of him and I think he could be a really good player for them and Jared Allen, we know what we got in him. But I think the bucks, I kind of put some stock in the youth of both of these guys and Yannis is getting up there. I don’t know. What do you think?
Terry Pluto (01:05:06.434)
Well, supposedly they want a bunch of draft picks in the in the because everybody right now has set the standard of three draft first round draft picks when you trade a star. that was in the Donovan Mitchell trade that was in the Rudy Gobert trade. And I’m sure I’m probably missing something else. and the calves, they’re, they’re, they don’t have me. mean, unless you want to trade your 2040 picks or something. I mean, you got nothing left to trade for that. So I don’t think they would do it.
It’s interesting. You know, it’s not a stupid trade in any way. That kind of thing. I
David Campbell (01:05:46.082)
And Conaton, you know, he had a bunch of injuries last year. think he had a calf and a ducture and he missed half the season. So, I mean, it’s basically Yanis for the two guys is what you’re, what you’re boiling it down to. So.
Terry Pluto (01:05:48.15)
He can shoot.
Terry Pluto (01:05:56.334)
Two guys. Yeah, that’s what you’re saying. Yeah. It’s a lot better than some of the others I’ve seen, but I don’t know if I had Yanis. I’m running an auction. I’m not doing it the Dallas Mavericks way of I’m only talking to the Lakers. mean, when you have Luca, it’s like, mean, the guy from Dallas should have been fired on the spot for that. I mean, just crazy. I mean, you got Luca or you got Yanis. You let everybody know.
David Campbell (01:06:10.12)
Yeah, backroom deal with one team.
Terry Pluto (01:06:25.964)
We’re just taking calls and see what you can get. mean, basically Utah did that. They put word out all over the NBA. I’m sure we’re trading Rudy Gobert. We’re trading Donovan Mitchell. We got two phones here. We got texts. We got email. We got whatever you want. Send it in. And they got seven drafts. Now it hasn’t worked out well for Utah so far. But in terms of assets, they got a ton. And all right, well, Donovan Mitchell.
David Campbell (01:06:43.33)
Yeah, go. Yeah, what do you got?
Terry Pluto (01:06:55.854)
Remember that the cast traded three first rounders. They also traded Laurie marketing who’s become an all star there. They Sexton who’s become a valuable player off the bench. They traded the kid from Kansas. They drafted a Saki or something like that. can’t, a Baji who didn’t play very well there, but actually I think he’s with Toronto where he’s starting to come around a little bit. So basically he was a first round pick who never actually played for the cast plus three first rounders.
plus those other guys and that was the price for Donovan Mitchell. And the price for Giannis should be more like, now you could argue that, know, Jared has made one All-Star team and Donovan and Darius has made a couple. But I don’t know. It’s kind of fun to talk about. Be interested to see what type of offers they get. I mean, maybe the Knicks are gonna, yeah, maybe the Knicks are gonna trade everybody for them. I don’t know.
David Campbell (01:07:47.926)
Yeah, I don’t know that the calves would do that.
David Campbell (01:07:52.844)
Yeah, maybe. I do think you’re right, Dottir. I think the Cavs are where they, their heads are where they said they were at at the end of season press conferences. Like we gave this, we gave it one shot. We’re going to stick with it. So.
Terry Pluto (01:08:01.43)
Never.
The thing I’ve heard is they want to Darius on the kind of offseason program that a younger Steph Curry was on to build up his endurance, build up his strength, all that kind of stuff. Not to say that he’ll become Curry, but Curry was a guy, although I was really looking, other than one year in his first five where he had, I forgot, injury, missed quite a few games, he was playing like 78 games. He was playing, but they wanted him to get stronger.
So that’s one of their off season plans. Now, of course, things can change. But keep in mind that July 1st thing. Now, I’m going to continue to check on that to make sure that they are indeed going to probably go on the second apron thing on July 1st, which messes up like a deal we just talked about there. But we’ll see.
David Campbell (01:08:55.554)
Yeah, and as you mentioned, Terry, just want real quick that I think 2031 is the first first round of the calves would be able to trade because you’re at 25, 27 and 29 all went to Utah.
Terry Pluto (01:09:00.652)
Yeah, I mean, yeah. Right. Yeah. See, you can’t, if you’re, you’re Milwaukee, you can’t, you can’t do that. You got to get more. and, and you also have to figure out if you’re Milwaukee, what, are you trying to do? Are you trying to win or whatever? I mean, they just, what they’re trying to do all the time is fighter coaches. I mean, they just, they’re good at that.
David Campbell (01:09:25.986)
All right, well thanks for that, getting us off on that little trade tangent there. Appreciate the email.
Terry Pluto (01:09:28.622)
Yeah, but again, I never would have imagined a trade like that. So credit to that, because I could be very dismissive on trades. Well, that’s just dumb. Not that at all on this.
David Campbell (01:09:40.486)
Alright, well thanks for that Jim. Checking in from Chicago and we appreciate kind of the creativity you brought there. So alright, I think we’re heading down the homestretch here. Terry, we do have one email about your Wyoming vacation and I wanted to thank you again for that you got me a Wyoming Cowboys hat that I received in the mail and I love it. I’m wearing it right now. So but this comes from John Yost and he says, hey Terry, thanks for sharing your Wyoming vacation photos. A popular fiction writer whose books take place in Wyoming.
Terry Pluto (01:09:54.424)
Okay.
David Campbell (01:10:09.662)
is CJ Box. I recommend that you look into him as an author if you’re not aware of his work. His books are engaging, quick reads, and my favorite part, he makes the Wyoming landscape a central character in his books. He provides vivid descriptions of the landscape and wildlife. And again, that’s from John Yost. So you’ve heard of CJ Box and you’re well familiar with him, aren’t you? I’m not surprised.
Terry Pluto (01:10:30.262)
Yes, I’ve basically read everything is written just about. And the cool thing about Box is like James Lee Burke is another mystery writer. He writes primarily novels set in Louisiana. Michael Conley is another guy like he writes mysteries set primarily in LA. And in each case, they make the landscape or wherever they are, the city, a character almost there.
Box is a fascinating guy because he started writing for the Saratoga paper, not Saratoga, New York, Saratoga, Wyoming, I think population 4,000, a weekly paper. And then he also needed extra money. So he got hooked up with the Wyoming tourism and he wrote all this stuff for the Wyoming tourism bureau, traveling all over Wyoming. In the process, he got to know game wardens.
and became very fascinated by Wyoming game wardens who were, you sometimes going into the deep wilderness to find these guys who were poaching moose and elk and everything and running into some very rough characters that were living back in there. And so he created this novel with the main character being a game warden who has all these adventures and, you know, some of it’s kind of unrealistic, but it’s a really good yarn. He is easy to read.
Language could be a little rough and there’s violence, but Roberto likes the stories too. And I suggest you check them out. He’s also written some with a couple other characters he’s created. But the cool thing is, so I went into a couple of bookstores and I saw that box is books. And I’m like, now, by the way, he’s been on number one bestseller New York times, I think five times and something like 20, sometimes on the bestseller list.
He says on Netflix things and the guy’s worth, don’t know, 50 million, 100 million big time. So I said, Hey, see you got CJ Box here. said, do you know him? Oh yeah. Every time he has a book, he has a signing. You know, this is a little store in Laramie and another one in Cheyenne and you know, I mean, he, still lives out there and he covers the home front. And I thought that was so cool. It’s exactly kind of like how he comes across when I’ve seen them interviewed. Um, and, uh, it’s worth checking out.
David Campbell (01:12:51.318)
Yeah, it’s nice that he’s not like big timing is the Wyoming people by just going to New York and doing the bookstore signing at Barnes and Noble, right?
Terry Pluto (01:12:53.929)
No, no.
Yeah, or what I’m sure he does some of those too, but it’s like no That’s the way, his character is a great line He said like the the the game warden will show up somewhere and a guy will be there kind of hiding something or whatever and game warden will see it and he goes Well, guess you know i’m here And a guy get all nervous Yeah, I was afraid of that. Well Here I am and he goes the next thing, you know, this guy’s like
I shouldn’t have shot that elk that’s hanging back over there. I know was on his season and it was a great line. The other line that he has all the time when things get a little rough and there’s a funny goes, well, we’re going to get a little Western here.
David Campbell (01:13:43.938)
It’s funny though
Terry Pluto (01:13:44.376)
So you should do that, David, when you’re not unhappy with somebody on the staff. You say, well, I bet you know why I called.
David Campbell (01:13:49.196)
Ha
Bet you know why I’m here, why I called, You were mentioning though, like his background was in journalism and it’s like they always say the best fiction is real life, right? And like David Simon, who wrote The Wire, that hugely and critically well-received series back, know, 10 or whatever years ago, like he used to cover police and crime in Baltimore, like for the Baltimore Sun, right? Yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:13:57.709)
Yeah.
Right.
Terry Pluto (01:14:04.343)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:14:12.93)
Yeah, you work for the Baltimore Sun. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
David Campbell (01:14:15.956)
And I think you take a lot of that real life experience you have covering different things in the crazy stories and the interesting characters you meet and you can spend some really interesting fiction out of it. So it seems like that’s what CJ Box did, much to his credit.
Terry Pluto (01:14:25.152)
Yeah. Michael Connolly was a, who wrote the Harry Bosch series and all that. And he’s had a lot of bestsellers. Connolly was originally a crime writer, covering the crime by the way, for the Fort Waterdale paper. And then went to the LA times and had the police feet in that. And then out of that, he started to take notes and create this detective and everything else. That sounds easy, but as somebody who’s been in journalism,
And I wrote about this in a newsletter recently where I talked about how I had a couple of plays, get stage reading, and I tried to sell some novels and couldn’t do it. I found it to be very hard. Plotting and that kind of thing was, I could kind of do sort of characters and atmosphere, but creating the plotting and that, that’s not easy. So.
David Campbell (01:15:16.918)
Yeah, what’s the saying? If it was easy, everybody would do it, right? Yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:15:20.244)
Yeah, I’ve had these people say, well, you know, if I had as much time as like John Grisham or so, I could do stuff like that. I’m like, give me a break. I get it. Grisham’s got 48 hours in the day and you only have 24. No, Grisham, what he was doing when he was working as a small time lawyer was getting up at five in the morning to write his first couple novels before he really hit big. know, CJ Box is like driving around Oklahoma.
David Campbell (01:15:34.356)
It is talent. is definitely talent.
Terry Pluto (01:15:47.808)
interviewing guys that their new restaurant in Cheyenne, for that, between writing about his game warden idea.
David Campbell (01:15:58.85)
Alright, well check out CJ Box and Terry’s always got some great book recommendations and there’s a good one from an email that we received off of your Wyoming trip. Thanks for that email, John Yost. Alright, I think we’re good here, Terry, right? Alright, I do want to remind people, Tom Hamilton’s Hall of Fame weekend in Cooperstown is coming up July 25th, 26th, 27th, and we have gotten in some great stories, memories, things you want to tell us about your...
Terry Pluto (01:16:11.629)
That is it.
David Campbell (01:16:27.02)
Kind of your feelings about Tom Hamilton as he prepares to go on the Hall of Fame. Send those to us at sports at cleveland.com. Put Terry’s talking in the subject line and we will try to start reading those. We are gonna be off next week. We will be back the following week. So be sure to join us then and we’ll see you then on Terry’s talking.